An objective of the refinement of communication networks is to lower their energy consumption in order to reduce the environmental burden, and to improve the cost-effectiveness of the operation of communication networks. In the context of mobile telecommunications systems, the focus of energy savings is on the radio access network, which accounts for the highest share of the energy consumption in a mobile telecommunications system, namely, about 60% to 80%. Evaluations of traffic data of mobile telecommunications systems have shown that there is very little mobile telecommunications traffic, especially in the night hours and on weekends, as a result of which the existing capacities of radio access networks, which are generally dimensioned to handle the maximum network load, are only used to a small extent. Therefore, during such low-traffic periods, the potential exists to lower the energy consumption of the radio access network by using radio resources more efficiently.
The publication “Traffic-Driven Power Saving in Operational 3G Cellular Networks”, by C. Peng et al. MobiCom 2011, proposes switching off selected base stations during low-traffic periods in order to reduce the energy required to operate the radio access network. A traffic-grid-based method is used to select the base stations that are to be switched off during the energy-saving mode of operation.